Cabela’s TIF

In a tight vote preceded by weeks of controversy and campaigning, Hooksett residents approved an $18 million bond to lure retail giant Cabela’s to town.

Warrant Article 4 on May’s Town Meeting ballot got just over the 60 percent needed to pass.

Cabela’s officials have said the outdoor sports retail company plans to purchase a 20-year, $18 million bond, and supporters of the plan contend taxpayers won’t be stuck footing the bill. The bond would be paid off by revenue generated within the town’s tax increment financing, or TIF zone, occupying about 150 acres off Interstate 93’s Exit 11.

Cabela’s intends to anchor the special tax district, and company officials have shown some town boards preliminary plans for the area showing a slew of potential spots for more retail stores, hotels, distribution centers and restaurants.

Since the vote, Cabela’s has been negotiating with the state Department of Transportation over land within the TIF zone that company officials have said will be crucial to the success of the development project.

Hooksett town councilors said they intend to enlist the help of a bond attorney to make sure the repayment structure of the $18 million loan doesn’t put local taxpayers at risk. Of that total, $13.5 million is slated for improvements directly related to the 55-acre Cabela’s site. The remaining $3.5 million is earmarked for town infrastructure improvements, including the final work needed to double the town’s sewer capacity.

Rueppel investigation

Longtime Hooksett Town Councilor Patricia Rueppel was under fire for months after a fellow councilor, Michael DiBitetto, accused her of undermining the council in its dealings with Nebraska-based retailer Cabela’s.

The council ultimately cleared Rueppel of the five charges, which claimed political collusion and town charter violations, in October. DiBit etto cited leaked e-mail correspondence in which Rueppel suggested hindering negotiations with the retailer, which looks for tax breaks from municipalities when it proposes new developments, could cause the company to look elsewhere.

DiBitetto also cited a letter to the editor in The Hooksett Banner in which he said Rueppel leaked nonpublic information gleaned from her previous time as a councilor. Rueppel was elected in May after resigning her council seat months earlier. At the time, Rueppel said DiBitetto’s claims were a political ploy intended to muzzle her.

Two councilors on the three-member subcommittee investigating Rueppel said her actions were excusable since she wasn’t a councilor when she penned the controversial correspondence.

Council Chairman George Longfellow also supported Rueppel, and said her dissenting views don’t warrant her losing her council seat. Rueppel has since said she’s never intended to thwart the Cabela’s deal, and instead only wants to protect taxpayers from paying off an $18 million bond.

1985 murder case ends

A 21-year-old murder case came to a close when Hopkinton’s Eric Windhurst pleaded guilty to the murder of Hooksett’s Danny Paquette.

Windhurst, 38, was sentenced to 15 to 36 years in state prison after reaching a plea deal for second-degree murder with prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Windhurst, who worked as a builder, was angered by his own father’s alleged sexual abuse of female family members when he shot Paquette, the stepfather of Windhurst’s high school friend, Melanie Cooper, who said Paquette abused and raped her. Cooper, who’s been living in Wyoming with a longtime husband and five children, was sentenced to three to six years in state prison in December for misleading police. She and Windhurst told police for years that they were at a sports game in Plymouth during the time of the shooting.

It was Cooper’s interviews with police in 2004 that made the murder case against Windhurst, and prosecutors had recommended her sentence be suspended. But according to news reports at the time, the judge wasn’t convinced Cooper wasn’t aware of Windhurst’s intention to kill Danny Paquette on Nov. 9, 1985.

Cooper is asking a a threemember board of judges to review her sentence, according to news reports.

According to court records, Windhurst picked Cooper up in a Volkswagen on the morning of the shooting, when the two drove to a field near Paquette’s Whitehall Road home.

While stopping and talking at a stone wall, Windhurst put a piece of gum in his mouth and said he was going to “do it” when the flavor went away, records show.

Windhurst then shot Paquette once through the heart with a rifle from about 150 to 200 yards.