Rep. Packard: Fixing the problem before it becomes a problem.
New Hampshire House Speaker Pro-Tem Sherman Packard, Republican from Londonderry, has filed legislation that will bring REAL ID to New Hampshire. New Hampshire is one of a handful of states that don’t comply with the federal regulations for state issued identification. As a result, those who have a New Hampshire issued I D, like a drivers license, may soon find they are useless in airports and federal buildings.
The bill will provide a mechanism to transition state issued I Ds to a compliant version, which will in turn ensure that current I Ds are acceptable for travel and other common purposes during a five year transition period. Rep. Packard said quote:
“As soon as the federal government alerted us to the fact that they would begin to enforce federal ID standards in the coming year, we got the pieces in place to ensure that the Legislature can solve the problem before it becomes a problem…Important to note is that our compliance with REAL ID will not create a national ID card, it will not put New Hampshire citizens in a federal database of driver information, and federal authorities will not have access to any new state data.” End quote.
The text of the bill will be made available as soon as the drafting and approval process is complete.
Jindal: Defending Christians religious rights
G O P presidential candidate, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal just crushed the current occupant of the White House yesterday. In a statement released after the occupant’s appearance with the Pope, Jindal said quote:
President Obama lied to Pope Francis. The President told the Pope that, in America, people must be free to live out their faith without fear of intimidation. That’s the opposite of reality in America today, Mr. President. We have Christians who are jailed for their closely-held religious beliefs. We have Christians fined thousands of dollars by the government simply because they didn’t bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Meanwhile, liberals are spending their time excoriating Christian conservatives, demanding that they publicly profess their support for a theoretical Muslim president that doesn’t exist. Here’s a reality check: Christians are Americans, too, with the same rights as everyone else. This President has not protected Christians and their constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedom, and it’s time we have a president who will.” Just thought we’d share.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Gatsas: Gets half
The mayoral campaigns for Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas and challenger Joyce Craig have announced the following dates and locations for the Manchester Mayoral Town Hall Series. Each town hall will begin at six thirty and is scheduled for forty five minutes. Each candidate begins with a brief introduction, takes questions from audience members and concludes with a closing statement.
The first event will be on Thursday, October first at McDonough Elementary School, (Ward 4) the next is on Wednesday, October seventh at Hillside Middle School (Ward 2); followed by events on October sixteenth, twenty first, twenty third and twenty eighth. The last one will be at the Our Lady of the Cedars Church (Ward 9), with locations for the others to be determined.
Craig: Would only go half way
Gatsas had proposed a town hall in each ward of the city for a total of twelve. To make up the difference, Gatsas will hold his own town hall events in the six wards which are left out. We know more about this, but aren’t sure it’s on the record, so we won’t say it yet. Just know the mayor’s people made a game effort for all twelve.
Livingston: Straight story?
We’re not entirely sure, but it looks like Manchester Superintendent Debra Livingston may have been somewhat disingenuous in an email explaining why neither the district nor the state Department of Education would be releasing the Smarter Balanced Assessment scores until November Twelfth. After reading her explanation over the air in its entirety during yesterday’s On Air News Read, a funny thing happened. We heard from people in other districts who more or less said “Really? We already have our district’s aggregated scores and the state averages.” Moreover, they provided us with documentation to prove it.
NH DoE: Blocking the release of test scores?
Districts not only received their reading and math scores for grades three through eight, they also received the state averages in those grades and subjects and the district’s NECAP scores for the five previous school years. We advised Livingston of the information we received yesterday afternoon at three thirty and asked her about the apparent contradiction between what she told us beforehand and what we’ve since learned in sincere hope of reconciling the two. We closed our email asking whether or not the district received the same information that others forwarded to us and, if so, we asked for its immediate release. We also asked if Livingston will request it from the state if they don’t yet have it. We’ll let you know if we get a reply.
Langton: Not taking benefits
While we’re on the topic of the schools, Manchester Ward Two School Board Member Debra Langton has responded to our inquiry about whether or not school board members are taking the city’s taxpayer provided health and dental benefits. Langton does NOT take either the health or dental benefits from the school district. That’s two down and twelve to go. Ward 7 School Board Member Ross Terrio stated he did not take the benefits the night Gatsas made the proposal, but voted to table the motion because he didn’t want to take them away from his colleagues who did because “they’d planned their lives” around having them.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is next
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