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New Boston residents opposed to a two percent spending cap warrant article are going to court to stop voters from being able to decide on the measure. And they have a hearing scheduled for Friday.

A group of pro-spending-hike residents filed a lawsuit this week asking a Hillsborough Superior Court judge to force selectmen to reschedule a canceled deliberative session on the spending cap. Residents Jon-Paul Turek, Robert Belanger, Richard Backus, Dan MacDonald, Keith Prive, Elizabeth Whitman, Eileen Belanger, Marie MacDonald, and William Gould want to be able to change the proposed two percent cap ahead of the Town Election.

State Rep. Keith Ammon (R-New Boston) is backing the spending cap in response to years of rising property taxes in town. He recently told NHJournal opponents want to raise the cap to as much as 50 percent before it goes to voters, making the measure meaningless. 

“I don’t think that’s legal,” Ammon said.

The current controversy centers on the Feb. 3 Town Meeting deliberative session where the spending cap proposal was discussed. Both Town Moderator Lee Nyquist and Town Attorney Michael Courtney told people at that meeting the numbers in the two percent spending cap could not be changed under state law. 

But the residents opposed to the cap say that’s wrong, and they should have been allowed to change the numbers on Feb. 3.

“The misinformation provided by the Town Moderator and Town Attorney at the deliberative session constitutes a clear procedural defect, as it directly misled voters and deprived them of their legal right to amend (the spending cap,)” the lawsuit states.

After getting stymied at the Feb. 3 meeting, the anti-spending-cap group pushed New Boston’s Board of Selectmen for an emergency deliberative session where they could get their way. But Ammon went to court arguing such a move is illegal. The Selectmen stood down, canceling the planned Feb. 18 session.

Now, residents who want to spend beyond the cap are asking the court to force selectmen to hold the special deliberative session anyway, claiming it is the only way to protect the integrity of Town Meeting.

“The decision to cancel the Special Town Meeting was not an act of prudence but an act of abdication—one that directly harms the registered voters of New Boston by allowing an improperly handled warrant article to proceed to the ballot without correction,” the lawsuit states.

New Boston education spending has been soaring for years. Between 2001 and 2019, the school population grew by 22 percent, but spending jumped by 104 percent. Per pupil spending rose from about $16,000 to more than $27,000 over that same period.

With New Boston’s Town Meeting set for March 11, timing is running short to make any changes. A hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for Friday in the Hillsborough Superior Court — North in Manchester. 

With his town facing skyrocketing local taxes, state Rep. Keith Ammon (R-New Boston) had enough of the annual spending sprees.

“Our taxes have gone up 30 percent in the last six months,” Ammon told NHJournal. “People cannot afford to live in town anymore. I just figured somebody’s gotta do something.”

Ammon is behind an effort to get spending under control by instituting a 2 percent cap on the town budget. That cap does not cut spending, but would limit future budget increases to 2 percent over the prior year’s approved budget. 

“Two percent is the standard inflation rate,” Ammon said.

But Ammon had to go to court this week to keep his tax cap proposal from being gutted by opponents. 

Rep. Keith Ammon (R-New Boston)

New Boston is already reeling from massive school spending spikes coupled with continuous town government increases. Some residents have seen their annual tax bill go up $2,000 in the last year. Meanwhile, the town’s proposed budget for 2025 comes in at $7,476,141, nearly a 5 percent hike, or $355,539, over the 2024 budget. That increased spending will result in a 2.6 percent tax increase for New Boston homeowners.

New Boston education spending has been soaring for years. Between 2001 and 2019, the school population grew by 22 percent, but spending jumped by 104 percent. Per pupil spending rose from about $16,000 to more than $27,000 over that same period.

After following state and local law, and collecting enough signatures to get the proposed cap on the upcoming Town Meeting ballot as a petitioned warrant article, Ammon learned last week there was a campaign to illegally change the cap article at the last minute.

New Boston is an SB2 Town Meeting municipality where voters decide on the budget and other warrant articles through a secret ballot vote, as opposed to a traditional open Town Meeting where nearly every question is put to a floor vote of the people attending the meeting.

In SB2 towns, voters are able to discuss and amend warrant articles during a deliberative session held at least a month before the ballot vote.

During the Feb. 3 deliberative session, however, New Boston voters were able to discuss the tax cap article, but not make any changes to the language of the article. Ammon told NHJournal there are people in town who wanted to derail the tax cap by amending the article via voice vote at the deliberative session and raising the 2 percent limit up to a whopping 50 percent. 

The problem with that plan, however, is that it would have been illegal. The town’s attorney and the town’s moderator both informed voters at the Feb. 3 deliberative session that under the law, the tax cap limit cannot be changed at the session. Town Meeting rules allow voters to amend appropriations up or down, but the cap percentage is not an appropriation, Ammon said. 

Days after that meeting, however, voters opposed to the tax cap went to selectmen and demanded a new deliberative session. They claimed a new deliberative session was required to correct the fact they were blocked from changing the tax cap on Feb. 3, which they called a “minor procedural irregularity.” The board agreed with the tax cap opponents, and scheduled the new deliberative session for Wednesday.

Ammon engaged attorney Richard Lehmann and filed an emergency motion in Hillsborough Superior Court — North in Manchester. Lehmann’s filing makes clear the tax cap opponents are trying to get their way by breaking the law.

“The petitioners do not seek to correct a ‘minor procedural irregularity.’ On the contrary, they seek a re-do of the meeting, at which time they will, presumably, seek to amend the language of Warrant Article 31 by changing (or removing) the percentage of permitted growth in the tax cap,” Lehmann wrote. 

With 24 hours to go before the “do-over” deliberative session, New Boston’s Select Board blinked and canceled the meeting.

“After reviewing this lawsuit with legal counsel, the Select Board is canceling the Special Deliberative Session scheduled for February 19, 2025, to avoid unnecessary expense to the Town litigating this matter,” the board said in a statement released Tuesday.

New Boston Town Administrator Carl Weber did not respond to a request for comment. Ammon said the board did the right thing by canceling the re-do session.

“I commend the Select Board for doing the right thing. It’s not always easy to make decisions on the fly like that,” Ammon said.

As of now, the tax cap question will go to voters on March 11. Ammon hopes voters choose to fix the out-of-control spending that is hurting their community.

“If we’re not going to do something about it now, when are we going to do something?” Ammon said.