Did she or did she not know that former Central High School Assistant Principal David Ryan, the man she nominated to be the Manchester School District’s Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Curriculum and Instruction, had sued Ward 9 School Committeeman Arthur Beaudry? Superintendent Dr. Debra Livingston would only say she was told by the district’s lawyers that she could not consider such things when evaluating an application. When asked about the political implications of hiring someone that had sued a member of the board, she would only say that she believes she nominated the person best qualified for the job. Ryan’s nomination was approved by the Board of School Committee last week on an 8 to 6 vote after a contentious non-public session. Girard at Large is awaiting a requested copy of Ryan’s application for review as school board members John Avard of Ward 10 and Roger Beauchamp of Ward 12 said they didn’t believe he met the qualifications of the job posting and there’s only one way to figure that out. In what some are seeing as irony and others as hypocrisy, Beaudry led the charge to not renew top administrator contracts several months ago stating he wanted to give a new superintendent the ability to build their own team.
District 20 State Senator Lou D’Allesandro, representing Manchester wards 3, 4, 10 and 11 and the town of Goffstown will host a health care propaganda meeting at Manchester City Hall on Wednesday, August 14th. D’Allesandro, fresh of a big birthday party he threw for himself, raising tens of thousands of dollars for his political fund, announced he will host the session he says is designed to share information about the potential expansion of the Medicaid program in New Hampshire. An avowed liberal, Lou’s in favor of the program which will about double the number of folks covered by the government’s welfare health insurance program for the poor. Governor Maggie Hassan and Democratic budget writers in the House had planned to implement Obamacare by expanding the program. Republicans in the Senate had a different idea. They said the state should thoroughly study the matter before undertaking the single largest expansion of government in the history of the state and they refused to do anything else. The session starts at 7 P M and is open to the general public as any good propaganda session should be.
News from our own backyard continues right after this.
More shenanigans are afoot at the Hooksett School Board. Seems that folks are uncertain as to when their next meeting will be. If the board follows its regular schedule, they’ll meet on Tuesday night. However, Girard at Large has learned that because an undisclosed member of the board can’t make the meeting, Board Chair Trisha “The Gavel” Korkosz moved the meeting to Wednesday night. But…, that date doesn’t work for Board Vice Chair David “The Pariah” Pearl. Pearl notified the chair of the conflict and was essentially told “too bad.” Pearl said he’s not sure when the meeting will be held, but wondered why a regularly scheduled board meeting would be changed to accommodate any single member without the approval of the rest of the board. I mean, c’mon, it’s not like people plan things around regularly scheduled meetings, is it? Pearl will be our guest later this week.
Goffstown State Representative John Burt has thrown a gauntlet at the ad hoc committee overseeing the development of Plan Pinardville, a controversial master plan that has the neighborhood up in arms. In testimony before the ad hoc committee last week, Burt said he may be open to parts of the plan if, and only if the plan specifically disallows the use of Eminent Domain to prevent the taking of private property for public use and if no member of the ad hoc committee or their businesses will profit by any development undertaken to implement the plan. Questions as to whether or not members of the ad hoc committee will profit by the changes have recently surfaced, especially since the plan calls for so called mixed use zoning that would enable the mass development of large scale multi unit housing. Girard at Large will investigate. Stay tuned.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is up next!
