The election’s not yet over in Hooksett. Defeated school board candidate Jack Sweeney filed for a recount late Friday afternoon. He came in fourth with six hundred eighty three votes, eight fewer than third place winner Amy Boilard. The recount, by law, cannot take place earlier than five days after filing nor more than ten, so while it has yet to be scheduled, it may not be concluded later than the twenty fourth. Girard at Large has learned that the incoming school board will delay its first meeting and await the outcome of the recount before holding its organizational meeting, which will include the election of an new chair, who just might need a new gavel, new vice-chair and new clerk.
Meanwhile the anti-Manchester faction that supported the badly beaten tuition contract with Pinkerton Academy, has stepped up its efforts to intimidate some of its newly elected school board members. In emails obtained by Girard at Large, defeated school board candidate Yvonne Preston demanded to know how the board was going
to guarantee her seventh grade daughter didn’t have to go to Manchester schools. She asked the board to poll the seventh grade class to know where those kids wanted to go and determine NOW what the board would do if there were more kids who wanted to attend the Memorandum of Understanding schools than there were slots available. (Hey, where was she when John Lyscars and David Pearl were making motion after motion after motion to do all this stuff for the current eight grade class months and months and months ago?) Anyway…in the email, she declared the margin of victory quote unquote “not wide” and asked the board to commission a poll by the U N H Survey Center so the board could understand what the No and Yes votes meant, what the voters were thinking and what the demographics of the vote were. She took aim at me, your Humble Host, calling me a hack, saying I was not a friend of Hooksett and advising the recipients of her email that she did not want to hear their opinions on this show or in a variety of other traditional or social media outlets. She also took a swipe at newly elected School Board Member James Sullivan saying he violated his promise not to use social media by being a guest on this show last Thursday. Oh, and when I confronted her about statements of mine she completely mis-characterized in her email, she went nuclear on the recipients. We’ll share those details this morning.
News from our incredible backyard continues after this.
Looks like there may have to be another election in Goffstown. Girard at Large learned Friday that State Representative and Planning Board Vice-Chairman Richard Meaney had left town, quite literally, and won’t be able to serve the balance of his term in the State House or on the Planning Board. Meaney confirmed that he and his family had left town and said 
their home was on the market as they’ve relocated to Alaska for employment. Meaney said he’d been unable to find work since leaving the employ of the Army and that his family had a once in a lifetime opportunity come available across the continent. He said he spoke with Goffstown Planning and Zoning Administrator Brian Rose and sent letters to both the Goffstown Board of Selectmen and the Clerk of the House of Representatives notifying them of his departure.
Former Bay State Senator Scott Brown made a dramatic, but not unexpected, announcement on Friday at the New Hampshire State Republican Committee‘s Northeast Leadership Conference in Nashua. He’s finally and officially formed an exploratory committee to test the waters for a campaign for the U S Senate. Brown, who lost his reelection bid to the high cheek-boned squaw Elizabeth Warren, apparently believes that incumbent New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen‘s cheek bones are low enough to beat. In a rousing speech given to the assembled crowd, Brown urged Republicans to focus on their areas of agreement not their differences. He hit the campaign trial immediately following the speech, announcing a Main Streets and Living Rooms Tour across the state to meet with everyday people and business owners. Critics say Brown needs to do that to learn the territory to which he’s transplanted himself. The campaign’s declared candidates Jim Rubens and Karen Testerman issued statements welcoming Brown to the race. We’ve not received anything from the campaign of former Senator Bob Smith.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is straight ahead!
