Referring to Mayor Ted Gatsas as a “multimillionaire” and calling his fifteen point loss “an unprecedented primary election performance,” Ward 12 Alderman Patrick Arnold declared victory of sorts in Manchester’s mayoral primary yesterday, comparing his results to those of then Ward 3 Alderman Frank Guinta in his two thousand five battle against Mayor Bob Baines. The Arnold campaign release said “the people of Manchester sent a resounding message that they believe in a brighter future.” The Gatsas campaign would seem to agree with premise of that statement though it draws a very different conclusion from the results. Gatsas, who took fifty six percent of the vote citywide and won all twelve wards, simply said the voters had spoken and he thanked them for their support. In contrast with the Arnold campaign release that was highly critical of Gatsas, referring to him as a bully among other things, Gatsas pledged to continue to wage a positive campaign for the office. He made no reference to Arnold, who garnered forty one percent of the vote and lost his home ward by seventeen percentage points, in his release. Glenn R J Ouellette won just 3 percent of the seven thousand one hundred sixty one votes cast for mayor in yesterday’s election. Fear not fair friends for we shall have analysis of the numbers and give you the straight skinny on who should be crowing about what and why. Citywide Summary 9-17-13 Primary Results
Also winning yesterday’s primary were: Ward 2 Alderman Ron Ludwig and challenger Win Hutchinson, Ward 2 School Board Member Debra Langton and challenger Sarah Browning, Ward 6 School Board Member Dan Bergeron and challenger Robyn Dunphy, Ward 9 Alderman Barbara Shaw and challenger Victoria Sullivan, Ward 10 Alderman Phil Greazzo and challenger Bill Barry, Ward 11 Alderman Normand Gamache and challenger Christopher Hussy, and in Ward 12 School Board Member Roger Beauchamp and former Alderman Keith Hirschmann won the aldermanic primary and Christine Duffley and Connie Van Houten won the School Board race. 9-17-13 Primary Results
Finally, in Ward 7, Democrat Mary Heath defeated Republican Ross Terrio in the special election for state representative by just thirty nine votes. The tally was three fifty to three eleven in the heavily Democratic ward where the Dems dumped a lot of dough. 9-17-13 Sp State General Results
News from our own backyard continues after this.
An overflow crowd attended the Common Core Forum hosted by Cornerstone Policy Research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College last night. We broadcast the event live and you can get the audio from our archive at Girard at Large dot com. In attendance were far more than the usual suspects from Evil Conservative dot com. There was a broad range of parents and educators in the room. I personally saw many current and former Manchester educators and school board members as well as school board members from multiple communities including Bedford and Nashua. The four nationally acclaimed speakers took direct aim at a number of Common Core claims on everything from academic rigor to data mining and sharing to the efficacy of national standards and comparisons with other countries, to whether or not federal laws were being violated by the adoption and institution of Common Core. Speakers were able to document their claims, particularly on how content would be driven by the standards and data collected on children, by referencing Core’s own published materials and the contracts the testing consortia, Smarter Balanced which NH has signed on for and PARCC, have with the states. It was a lively, interesting forum we were pleased to cover and post to our archive.
Meanwhile, Manchester’s Teachers were off yesterday for a professional development workshop at which they were being taught how to implement and use the Common Core curriculum guides that still have yet to be approved by either the Curriculum and Instruction Committee of the School Board or the School Board itself.
In other news, the Hooksett School Board had yet another entertaining discussion over whether or not Vice Chairman David “The Pariah” Pearl could use the technology in the media center they hold their meetings in to make a presentation. Cheryl “BT” Akstin objected to Pearl being able to use the projector to present undisclosed information he developed, she says, as a private citizen. Problem is that Akstin herself presented unplanned data earlier in the meeting, though she didn’t use a projector. Only Trisha “The Gavel” Korkosz would support her motion to deny Pearl the use of the technology. We’ve linked to the 5 minutes video, which includes an entertaining performance by Chucky the Super who seemed to have difficulty unfolding and hanging some sort of over sized yellow sheet on an easel from this newscast. In other business, the Hooksett Board got an update on the status of negotiations with Pinkerton Academy. Other schools they want to contract with don’t seem to want to contract with them, but will accept Hooksett’s kids under a memorandum of understanding. Hmmm
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is just 30 seconds away.
