Officially Submitted To The NHDOT: The Mike Mulligan Memorial Bridge

Update Jan 23

Oh, so what did you get arrested for? I was riding over that bridge walkway on for years on my bike. Riding over the boards sounded abnormally rickety. They sounded loose. Then much later, I am walking on the bridge when I scuffed my shoe across the a board. The board was moving in its place. I am able to pull the board up with just my hands. The screws holding boards to the bridge had completely rusted away. Then to my shock, the one next to it was loose too. I discovered the vast majority of the boards not attached to the bridge. All the screws had rusted away. I thought it was a danger to anyone walking on the bridge. I knew the NHDOT was indifferent to keeping the bridge in a repaired state. So I came up with plan with getting it emediately repaired. Life or limb was at stake. I removed about ten boards on both sides of the bridge and hocked the loose boards from the bridge. I emediately called 911 to tell them what I did. I further pictured up all my work and put up the substantial safety barriers to prevent people from falling in the holes.

I love it when a plan works. Within 12 hours, the NHDOT had employees nailing down all the rest of the planks. I had pictured up the beginning of "my" repair work and sent my blog links to the all the local media. I had intentionally provided the police the pictures to convict me. There was much more damage to walkway than even I could see. Two hundred and sixty one days later, the NHDOT completely rehabbed the walkway with a $30,000 project. The courts charged me about %1500 and the Bridge replace the wooden planks project cost about $30,000...what is wrong with this. All the boards were completely replaced. My court pleading date had came and went before the rehab job...We came up with a agreement. It was pretty damn stanky from my lawyer's side of it and NHDOT. They didn't discover or notify me a big rehab was being planned. If I would have known the complete rehab was going to be done, I would have gone to a jury trial. I would have gone to trail at the district and then superior courts without doubt. But they were keeping the true safety and dangerousness of the bridge from me. They wanted to make me a nut job...   

I got a court appointed lawyer...he just didn't get it. He poorly communicated with me. I told him we got to put the NHDOT on trail. He told me he was OK to put on solely a "political trial". I sized his skills up...I thought he was only qualitied to be a perfunctory. I wasn't guilty of anything. I was a hero. The state of NH and their Dot was so dysfunctional over funding and keeping up with their bridges...I had to emediately get the state to bring back the Brattleboro-Hinsdale bridge walkway to a safe condition. I just thought the district court was so dysfunctional and poorly funded itself, there was no way I could get justice.  

I walked into court on the pleading date. The court is full of hung-over college kids. At least a hundred kids. They had a riot in the proceeding weeks and they was their first court proceeding. There was some confusion over whether the courts wanted everyone else or the college kids to come back at a later date. So, I walked out of court without making a pleading. For all the court knew, I just didn't show up. I had been sitting there from opening till about noon when I left. The court entered a bench warrant on me on a no show. I was nervous leaving the court. It was a Monday. On Tuesday, I called the prosecutor wanting to ask how to get all the evidence from them. So told me it was way too premature for that at this stage, but do you know, I got a bench warrant for your arrest out there. I explained the mix up. She told me, if you promise to go to court next Monday, I’ll pull the bench warrant. I profusely agreed.

So the next Friday comes up, (after Wednesday, Thursday), its 6pm with a knock on the door. It’s a policeman coming to arrest me on a bench warrant (Bumba). I tell him your warrant is no good with a smile. He laughs heartily at me saying, “you know how many times that has been pulled on me. I talked him into calling the district court, where he discovers indeed the warrant was no good. The police officer then just about has a "cow shit" on my kitchen saying over and over again “I was just about going to a arrest a guy with no warrant”. He tells me that is a first for me in my career.

By the way, lets say I could have a do-over over with the attempted arrest and bum warrant. If I had my wits on. In the aims of furthering my bridge building "attention gathering" tactics. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have aimed for going to jail and over the weekend. I could have made a lot of hay with improperly getting arrested and going to jail.  

I embarrassed the hell over everyone here. I think the crusty old police Chief strategized about how he could hurt me the most. He maliciously planned to arrest me on Friday hoping I’d have to spend the weekend in jail. Bumba told the warrant was "hanging around" the police station since Tues or Wednesday.

I explained this to my lawyer. I wanted him to use this in my case or make a complaint about the police chief. He politely went onto a new subject like I was just a little boy. This was involved in my decision to plead.
     

Updated Jan 22

If you want to see everything: Just google on "Mike Mulligan, Hinsdale NH".

Example of my disgusting bridge March 2013 pictures.   

***Keene Sentinel: "One attendee had a suggestion for naming the new bridge. Michael J. Mulligan of Hinsdale, who refers to himself as a “bridge angel,” proposed that the new bridge be named the Mike Mulligan Memorial Bridge.

Mulligan has been known in recent years for his demonstrations and protests on the bridge, where he posted warnings to drivers that they were traveling over what he claimed were unsafe structures."   

Honestly, $1500 in a plea deal to the courts turned into a $45 million dollar bridge? Think of the return on my investment. The back story: a dirt poor loser decided he had a lot of extra time on his hands. Thought about how the Brattleboro-Hinsdale bridge desperately needed a replacement. Came up with the stupidest plan imaginable to picture up the disgraceful bridge and engage all the local officials, police, politicians, the surrounding communities and the disgraceful and extremely underfunded NHDOT. I comprehensively documented my adventures on my blog and the Brattleboro Topix. 

As I told the NHDOT, local and regional politicians and community at the Hinsdale NH meeting last night...we had a hapless bridge committee who couldn't accomplish a damn thing in thirty years. I had the stupidest thought come into my head, acted on it...got the bridge planed and funded (well, almost funded)and built in just a few years considering the span of history. I created that bridge out of nothing... 

President Trump all campaign was saying we need a big infrastructure project nationwide. He recently proposed a $300 billion dollar infrastructure program. He is throwing mere pennies at the scale of our infrastructure problems. He is getting just like the democrats. We need a infrastructure program to the tune in excess $10 trillion dollars to even begin to the turn the corner on our problems.

I loved doing a host of skits at the dilapidated bridge. I had a blast out there until the police came to my house to arrest me.  Something had to entertain me during mostly boring times in protest. So I dress up as a construction worker. I had a safety helmet on and a dirt shovel in my hands. I was simulating lets start digging dirt soon for the new bride I had a big sign next to me saying lets begin digging dirt next year for the new. At times, I held the shovel way over my head, and just a little pumping action, in anticipation of my triumph over these large organizations. Then a cop pulled up to saying some person saw you assaulting another person with your shovel. I asked the cop, did you get the name of my accuser and did he file a report. I thought the police just made this up to get me to stop protesting at the bridge. 

What I liked the most, was throwing kisses at pretty women in speeding cars. I utterly love it when pretty girls just smiled at me. I also got a lot to scowls.   What I like most, was when the women threw kisses at me before I could get my kissing hand up to my mouth. It happened a lot. Then I began throwing kisses at men in moving cars for the first time in my life. I swear, some men even threw kisses at me. I thought I was going to the emergency room when a angry husband showed up. He took severe umbrage with me for throwing kisses at his wife. I never stopped throwing free kisses ever!!!

A interesting adventure with my wife occurred during at this time. My first rendition of a bridge angel consisted of summer shorts, a homemade halo and a white sheet simulating the shimmering body of a angel. I cut a big hole in the middle of a white sheet and put it over my head. The sheet was my shimmering body. Then one day my wife and daughter passed my station. Their mouths were wide open in shock... My wife didn't approve of this actions. I though I was going to get one of those screaming, "I am divorcing" things again. "This time I mean it"! I caught her later in the kitchen, she had a ugly and mean face on. It was really a scary situation. (I am still married to her.) I knew she would say anything to try to stop me from embarrassing her and the family. My shimmering white sheet came down to just above my knees with shorts on. It looked like a dress, I am told by other humans. It was hot as hell with my getup on. With her really ugly face on and bellowing authoritarian voice, she blurts out, "I KNOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU". "You are a latent homosexual". I never put back on my shimmering body sheet again. The halo stayed. I always have a halo on my head. Just sometimes you are allowed to see it.       

Questions raised about old bridges at hearing for new Hinsdale-Brattleboro span

HINSDALE — As state highway officials move forward with plans for a new bridge connecting the town to Brattleboro, members of the public have raised concerns about what will happen to the current bridges spanning the Connecticut River.

Several people asked about the future of those structures, and access to Hinsdale Island, at a public hearing Thursday night about the estimated $46 million project.

The bridges, named after Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh, are Pennsylvania truss-style spans built in 1920 and rehabilitated in 1988. N.H. Department of Transportation officials classify the narrow bridges as functionally obsolete, which means they’re outdated, don’t meet current design standards and have height and weight restrictions.

In addition to building a new bridge, the transportation department plans to convert the old bridges for use by bicycles and pedestrians. The department has also applied for a TIGER grant to provide additional funds for the old bridges’ refurbishment.

The rest of the money for the bridge replacement project will come from federal highway funds, New Hampshire funds and Vermont funds, officials said Thursday.

Steve Lindsey, a former state representative from Keene, spoke in favor of maintaining the bridges so that people still have access to Hinsdale Island.

“It’s a wonderful public space. It’s a place for the public to go in nature, and it’s access to the river,” he said. “ ... We should maintain the old bridges as heritage structures, as access to a wonderful public resource for everyone to gain access to the island.”

Lindsey also noted that he had originally submitted the bill to name the bridges after Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh, and that this style of bridge is no longer common.

However, Joseph Conroy, a Hinsdale resident who serves on the town’s budget committee, opposed maintaining the existing bridges and advocated for tearing them down sooner rather than later, which he said would be more inexpensive in the long-run.

“What are we going to do with them? Will they rot and fall into the river?” Conroy said. “ ... If we keep those bridges, 10 years from now, what’s it going to cost to take those bridges down? $10 million? $8 million? Taxpayers gotta pay for that.”

Hinsdale resident Edwin O. “Smokey” Smith, a former state representative, emphasized that if the bridges are maintained, the island should be cleaned up and turned into a “usable space” for the public.

A project to replace the bridges has been included in the state’s 10-year transportation improvement plan since fiscal year 1994, with its start date being delayed several times. It was bumped completely from the 2013-22 plan because of a lack of funding before being put back in the 2015-24 plan.

The new steel girder bridge, to be built several hundred feet downstream of the existing bridges, will stretch 1,782 feet across the Connecticut River. It will vary in width between 49 feet along the majority of the roadway and 53 feet at the Vermont-side intersection, which will be slightly wider to accommodate a turning lane where Route 119 intersects Route 142. That intersection will be controlled with a traffic signal. The plans also call for a 6-foot-wide sidewalk on the bridge’s north side, with a few viewing platforms for pedestrians to enjoy views of the river.

The state will begin accepting construction bids in late 2019, with work likely to begin in spring 2020 and continue into 2023, state officials said Thursday night.

The public hearing, which was moderated by a governor-appointed commission, drew about 50 people to Hinsdale Town Hall, including several state and town officials. The commission is chaired by Terry M. Clark, and area residents Christopher C. Coates and James M. Tetreault also serve on it.

State Sen. Jay V. Kahn, D-Keene, spoke in favor of the project, along with state Rep. Michael D. Abbott, D-Hinsdale.

“This project has been going on or in the works since basically 1973. It has been on and off the 10-year plan from that time forward ... I think that it’s been thoroughly vetted and explored and its time has come,” Abbott said. “I think that any delay in its implementation would have a very detrimental effect on the economic, social and basically the safety concerns of the Hinsdale community and all the other communities along Route 119.”

One attendee had a suggestion for naming the new bridge. Michael J. Mulligan of Hinsdale, who refers to himself as a “bridge angel,” proposed that the new bridge be named the Mike Mulligan Memorial Bridge.

Mulligan has been known in recent years for his demonstrations and protests on the bridge, where he posted warnings to drivers that they were traveling over what he claimed were unsafe structures.

A few hearing attendees asked about the process the project needed to go through on the Vermont side of the river.

They included Daniel Cotter, the director of plant and operations maintenance at Marlboro College, who expressed concern about the number of parking spaces the college’s Brattleboro location would lose because of the new construction.

Officials referred his concern and other questions to the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

The official record of the public hearing will remain open for 10 days. Members of the public can submit information or testimony for the record by mail to Peter E. Stamnas, director of project development at the N.H. Department of Transportation, at P.O. Box 483, Concord, 03302.