Livingston: Budget discussions continue
The Manchester Board of School Committee will meet tonight beginning at seven. Among the items on the agenda, the board will continue the discussion on next year’s budget. The board has yet to take action to close the two and one half million dollar gap between the budget requested by Superintendent Debra Livingston and the increase allowed by the city’s tax cap. At a special meeting on April eighteenth, the board voted against a motion Livingston requested to authorize her to issue layoff notices to teachers, if necessary, to remedy the shortfall. Tomorrow is the last day those notices can be issued according to the contract the city has with the teachers’ union.
The agenda contains a communication from the board’s Committee on Building and Sites, which went on record as opposed to Livingston’s proposed cuts to building maintenance and repair.
Akhter & Orzechowski: Want to go to prom
Not on the agenda, but expected to be discussed, is the controversy over whether or not twenty two year old Kaitlyn Orzechowski may attend the Central Prom with her eighteen year old boyfriend, Sultan Akhter, a senior at Central. Orzechowski herself is a Central grad and is graduating from St. Anselm College just days from now. School and district administrators have barred Orzechowski because she exceeds the accepted age limit by one year, however there is no official policy limiting the age of prom attendees on the books. It’s merely been a practice of the city’s high schools to not allow attendees over twenty one. Akhter’s mother, Roxanne, has said she will appeal to the board at tonight’s meeting.
Sanborn: No tax helping neighbors
The New Hampshire Senate approved an amended version of H B 1 4 3 0 last week. The bill, which once proposed at ten dollar registration fee on small compact tractors and lawnmowers, now prevents the requirement they register in order to travel on secondary roads. District Nine Senator Andy Sanborn, Republican from Bedford, who sponsored the amendment, said quote
“the last thing we should do is tax people who might want to help their friends and neighbors get a small, backyard job done.”
He commended the senate for quote
“protecting New Hampshire citizens against another senseless tax” and urged citizens to quote: “Now go out and help your neighbor.”
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Rubens: A different drug policy
G O P U S Senate candidate Jim Rubens is making waves in the war against opioid addiction. He says the War on Drugs has failed and is calling for a rethink of society’s approach to the drug issue.
Rubens says that despite the world spending one trillion dollars in a war on drugs, illegal drugs are now cheaper and more widely available than ever. He said that nearly ten percent of our fellow Americans used illegal drugs last year, with domestic consumption exceeding one hundred billion dollars. The associated crime, lost productivity and health care now cost almost double that annually. Last year in New Hampshire, 4 3 3 people died from opioid overdoses, which is three times the number killed in traffic accidents.
Rubens said that despite spending over eight billion dollars to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan, cultivation there has reached record levels, now supplying three-quarters of global demand and providing a major source of funding for the Taliban. He says we’re not doing much better in Mexico, where drug cartels have murdered one hundred thousand people since two thousand seven to continue supplying America’s addicts. Nearly half of the state’s drug overdose deaths were caused by fentanyl manufactured by these drug cartels and snuck across our open border.
Rubens: Look to Switzerland
Said Rubens, Quote:
“Unfortunately, in response to this abject and deadly policy failure, we keep hearing more of the same from most of our political leaders: double down yet again on the drug war with more unfunded spending loaded onto our nation’s already maxed-out credit card.”
Instead, Rubens is calling for an approach similar to the one used in Canada and eight European countries he says have shifted taxpayer funding away from prosecuting and incarcerating addicts to providing drug assisted treatment programs. He claimed that Switzerland has reduced its drug-overdose deaths to a rate one-twentieth (five percent) of New Hampshire’s by taking this approach and that there has been corresponding reductions in drug-related property crimes, illegal drug use, disease, and major increases in addiction treatment retention.
Said Rubens, quote:
“Opioid addiction cannot be cured, but can be effectively managed with a seamless bundle of services that remain available to the addict for years or even a lifetime. These services can include a maintenance dose of opioid receptor blocking drugs like Suboxone, administered in clinics in combination with abuse drug tests and mental health and life counseling.
Rubens: Let the states decide
He also called on Congress to grant the states their power under the Tenth Amendment to determine the legal status of marijuana and how to regulate and tax it like alcohol. Quote,
“We need to admit that prohibition has failed. At my local high school in Hanover, marijuana can be had free for the asking every day and is far easier to obtain than alcohol.”
Rubens will be our guest in the seven o’clock hour this morning to discuss the details. We’ve linked to his Web site for those who want to read more and a rather eye opening interview he conducted with about a dozen woman inmates at the Cheshire County Jail on the topic.
Read more on Rubens’ policy to end the failed drug war.
Watch video of Rubens’ interview with Cheshire County jail inmates.
Candia Police: Crime Wave continues…
Police in Candia continue their epic battle against the Crime Wave that’s come to define the town. Last month, Candia’s cops issued one hundred and ninety motor vehicle warnings and five motor vehicle summons. They also arrested eight people on charges ranging from Involuntary Emergency Admissions, to being taken into protective custody for alcoholism, trespassing, driving after suspension and several outstanding warrants.
Candia PD: Register your dog
One has to marvel at how their dutiful police department, despite battling the now infamous Candia Crime Wave, still remembered to remind residents to register their dogs to comply with state law!
That’s news from our own backyard! Girard at Large hour ___ is next!
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