A PROMISE TO KEEP: 5%
A Ballot Committee of
Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
PO Box 408 * Peabody, MA 01960
Phone:(617) 248-0022 /(508) 538-3900 E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
Visit our web-page at: http://cltg.org
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***Promise Update ***
Saturday, December 13, 1997

Greetings activists:

It’s been a grueling week, and I can’t believe it’s Saturday already, not that this makes any difference from a weekday—they’re still all workdays for us until this is over. It’s been that way for months now, so you members should know that you’re sure getting your money’s worth and then some from your dues and contributions!

The dark forces of insatiable greed vs. a small band of committed defenders of besieged taxpayers all this week occupied the 17th floor corridors of One Ashburton Place in Boston, home of the Secretary of State’s Elections Division. The Massachusetts Teachers Association and TEAM rolled in two big copier machines and about two dozen workers. We rented a big copier, had it moved in on Tuesday. Chip Faulkner and Loretta Hayden immediately began systematically copying all of the thousands of our petitions forms. At the close of business (the state’s, certainly not ours!) yesterday, we had close to half our petitions copied. We should have them all done by the middle of this coming week.

We attempted to retain a ballot law attorney on Tuesday, only to learn that the two "experts" in the state, Atty. "Hackey" Katzler and Atty. Bill McDermott, had already been hired by the Teachers Union three weeks ago. (Katzler was a high school-mate of Michael Dukakis, served with him as a Brookline selectman, and was the Duke’s first campaign manager.) So we retained Atty. Steve Epstein, our Georgetown and Liberty Tree Mall petition drive coordinator. About the same time, the Teachers Union brought in their handwriting analyst as well.

Already, the forces of darkness have found two petitions in our lot that shouldn’t have been there—an "E" petition and an "L" petition that slipped through our two careful counts and the Secretary’s official count, dropping our total into a mere 80-plus signatures over the required 64,928; down from our 117.

We will be filing a counter-challenge in superior court soon to recover some of the signatures that weren’t certified by the city and town clerks but should have been.

Yesterday, after much foot-dragging, the Secretary of State’s office finally released a CD-ROM copy of its state voter registration database to me—but the hoops I had to jump though to finally get it, while we’re on a deadline no less, were . . . well, typical. It’s now in the hands of Dan Gregory, a volunteer who has the expertise to convert it into something we can use, and promised to have it done by Monday.

Special thanks also go to John McNear of Manchester, Anne Hilbert of Weymouth, and Norm and Joan Paley of Scituate, who’ve already jumped in and have been helping with the copying and sorting in Boston.

But now the real fun begins!

We should have a strategy and system in place, and the voter registration database back and in a usable form, by Monday and will be ready to begin scouring out petitions for signatures that *should have been* certified by the city and town clerks -- but weren’t, for one reason or another.

We will begin needing your help this coming week to pore over our copies of the petitions to find any signatures that the city and town clerks *should* have certified and which we intend to challenge and *have* certified.

If you’re available to come into our Boston office any time, please immediately call me (978-538-3900) or Loretta Hayden (617-248-002) or write me at: cltg@cltg.org. If you can take a city or town and carefully inspect each signature on every petition from that municipality against its voter registration list, we desperately need your help too!

I can’t begin to tell you just how massive a job this is ahead of us—and by how much we’re out-gunned by the Teachers Union (five-to-one up there all week)!

And these unexpected expenses even thus far are staggering and beyond our ability to afford. (Please send a contribution *fast* of as much as you can afford to keep this going, or we’ll be unable to afford it! A Promise to Keep: 5% - PO Box 408 - Peabody, MA 01960)

The deadline for filing a challenge is Friday, January 2nd

· and that, folks, is nowhere near enough time for even a moment of procrastination. It is why we’re still working seven-days-a-week around the clock here at CLT&G.

Thanks for your anticipated assistance. Together we will prevail, but *only* together, as we have so recently learned.

Chip Ford—


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You can e-mail A Promise to Keep: 5% at --> cltg@cltg.org
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