On Air News Read for November 3, 2017

Our top story this morning comes from the town of Milford.  The dump re-opened yesterday and is again running by normal business hours.  Apparently, it was a casualty of the storm.

The Goffstown School Board called a special meeting on Monday to discuss the Local Education Tax Rate, which was set by the Department of Revenue Administration last week.  The tax rate jumped to fifteen dollars and two cents, up a buck forty seven.  That spike was well more than double the sixty four cents the administration projected when presenting its budget recommendations to the school board, budget committee and deliberative session. 

In a statement issued earlier in the week, Superintendent Brian Balke said that the business office made an error when projecting the tax rate.  They improperly counted one point five million dollars in grant funds and food service revenues as general fund revenue.  That’s not supposed to happen and now the taxpayers will have to pay for that mistake.  Balke apologized, saying, quote: 

McCarthy: Taxes still low

“We strive for accuracy and transparency in all we do in SAU 19. I accept full responsibility for this calculation error made in the anticipated Tax Rate and apologize to the School Board, the Budget Committee, the Board of Selectmen, and the community as a whole for this unfortunate error. Had we had the correct 2017 Tax Rate projection, the School District could have taken steps to reduce the increase to the tax impact for 2017.”

School Board Chairman, Dian McCarthy issued a statement saying the board was, quote: 

“deeply concerned about the unexpected difference in the Tax Rate and are currently considering all of our options as we work towards addressing this issue.” 

She said they have put a new process in place to ensure that such an error won’t happen again.  She went on to bloviate over what a wonderful group of professionals work for the district and how its tax burden remains well below the state average.

Former Manchester Mayor Raymond J. Wieczorek has endorsed Christopher Stewart for alderman in Ward One.  Wieczorek, a Ward One resident, is the second longest serving mayor in the city’s history, holding office from nineteen ninety to two thousand.  In a letter to Ward One residents, Wieczorek said he was proud of his work with Republicans and Democrats to get important things done, pointing to the building the civic center, expansion the airport and beginning fo the downtown’s revitalization as examples of what can happen when politics are put aside. 

Wieczorek said Chris Stewart’s record as a school board member was proof that he could work collaboratively across party lines to make quote “smart, financially responsible investments in our future” and that he would work with fellow board members to bring real, meaningful change to the city’s schools while creating a more efficient and effective city government.

News from our own backyard continues after this!

The radical leftist group Rights & Democracy New Hampshire, which supported Bernie Sanders for President, announced its endorsements for candidates in the upcoming municipal elections in Manchester.  In a release issued yesterday, the group said its “Movement Politics” team spent time reading through candidate questionnaires and interviewing the candidates before making their endorsements.  In making the endorsements, the group said, quote:

In order to change the course of our state, and our nation, we need to be building power at all levels of electoral politics—and especially at the local level on our school boards, councils, and aldermanic boards.

RAD is proud to endorse these candidates who have proven that they will put the health and future of their community first, and will work on policies that lift up their neighbors, rather than divide them.

For alderman, they endorsed:

• Peter Macone in Ward Six,
• Brenda Noiseux in Ward Seven and
• Hassan Essa in Ward 12.

For school board, they endorsed:

• David Scannell in Ward Two,
• Dan Bergeron in Ward Six,
• Ethan Moorhouse in Ward Seven,
• Thomas McGee in Ward Ten and
• Constance Van Houten in Ward Twelve.

Note well, they would have endorsed Kathy Staub for school board in Ward Five were she not on their payroll.

We’ve uploaded the questionnaire they sent to candidates so you can see what they’re all about and, yes, we’ll probably share it again on the air this morning just on account of because.  We also note that neither the group nor the candidates have released their survey answers.

Eversource says its crews, working alongside hundreds of out-of-state line and tree workers, continue to make significant progress in restoring power to thousands of  customers impacted by Sunday’s devastating wind storm.  As of early Thursday afternoon, Eversource had restored power to more than 297,000 customers and had fewer than 14,000 remaining without power.

With power restoration substantially complete in many communities, crews continue to work in several areas hardest hit by the storm, including the Lakes Region southeast to the Seacoast and the North Country.  The storm has also caused many individual customer outages throughout the state.  The repairs required for these outages over widespread geographic areas take additional time to complete.  Crews are going to each of these individual locations to complete repairs. 

Just a reminder.  Our top story this morning is the reopening of the town dump in Milford  You may now dispose of your trash.

That’s NEWs from our own backyard!  Girard at Large hour ___ is next!